


In the Eye of the Beholder

by alkjira



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Magical!Bilbo, Non-Consensual Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alkjira/pseuds/alkjira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone sees Bilbo slightly differently. They have ever since he was in his tweens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Eye of the Beholder

Everyone sees Bilbo slightly differently. They have ever since he was in his tweens.  
  
He has never quite worked out how, or why, this is, or how it works. What is subject to change and what is not.  
  
His hair and eyes most definitely, or at least the colour of them. His skin (he still feels a bit uneasy thinking about the Man who had stared at him as he'd complimented Bilbo’s smooth porcelain skin “Cor, like a doll you are”, the look in his eyes had made Bilbo shiver in discomfort...), and some of his other features like his hands, his feet, his lips and nose, but curiously never his ears. They remain pointed.  
  
And while the exact shade of his hair varies between a light yellow blond over to brown no one ever seems to see him with black hair. But it’s always curly.

All of the Dwarfs in Thorin’s company seems to see him with coppery golden hair. The exact shade of it varies, but it does not stray too far.  Perhaps that is not so surprising considering the fondness their kind has for metals. But still, it’s a little strange that no one sees him with silver hair if that is the case.  
  
The true colour of his hair really does tends towards the blonder end of the scales, however Bilbo would not describe himself with any of the adjectives or descriptives which are usually thrown his way.  And his eyes are neither sapphire or emerald or a bright nut-brown.  
  
He’s often thought that it was lucky this did not start until he was almost a fully grown, mature Hobbit. If he had only been a child… No… It was fortunate it had begun when he could understand it better, and when he was also old enough to understand the look in certain people’s eyes as they looked at him. At least, most of the time.  
   
Back to the subject of hair.  
  
Bilbo knows people have seen him with dark hair as well, though never in shades darker than brown or tending towards auburn. But since no one has ever told him what lovely raven locks he has there must be limitations as to what magic the spell (becaue what else can this really be?) can weave, as he did not believe that everyone thinks dark hair unappealing. He himself certainly does not.  
  
-  
  
The first time he’d realised that something was different about him was when people who had known him all his life started to do a double-take when spotting him. And then people started coming around, inviting themselves in for tea and ‘accidentally’ brushing their fingers against his as he served them said tea. Then the compliments had started.  
  
Those who had known him all his life didn’t stray all that far from how he actually looked. They only… _stretched_ him. Made him a little different according to their own preferences.  
   
The next clue had come when he heard an argument about what the colour of his eyes were.  
  
The two debaters were Hobbit’s he’d grown up with, people who should know the colour of his eyes, just as he knew that theirs were sky blue and leaf green. Even if they didn’t know the exact shade, they should at least have known that his wasn’t anything _remotely_ close to cornflower or forget-me-not blue.  
  
At the time he had also been confused why they were even discussing it in the first place.

-  
   
The fifth time someone told him that he was the prettiest Hobbit they’d ever seen, what with his (insert feature that Bilbo didn’t actually have) and tried to stick their hand down his pants he figured it out.  
  
Perhaps he should have cottoned on before, but he’d figured that they were exaggerating to try and get on his good side. (It hadn’t worked. Not even before he’d realised.)

Not everyone was like that. Some just stared and blushed. Or tried to talk to him with a voice breaking from nerves. Others… others were worse than the casual groping.  
  
Bilbo didn’t like thinking about those, and he kept more to himself after realising that some people didn’t bother to listen when he told them no. Thankfully whatever this magic was it only seemed to work on people close by and he was a fast runner. He could just run away and they’d forget what they had been doing.  It’d worked so far.  
  
And, he was almost glad that he’d gotten so much practice at running. It certainly came in handy when he ran after a Company of Dwarfs and an annoying Wizard; and an adventure.  
  
At first he had thought that the Dwarfs weren’t affected by whatever it was that all the Hobbits in the Shire seemed to be. If he had known that this was not the truth he might not have dared to joing them. He couldn’t exactly keep running from them all the way across the world if it came to that.  
  
Gandalf certainly wasn’t affected, thank the Valar, so Bilbo had told himself that it was just Men and Hobbits. (He hadn't believed that Elves would be affected, but he hadn't been correct in that regard either. However they didn't let on, except for a curious glint in their eyes when they looked at him.)  
  
But while it turned out that the Dwarfs saw him in the same strange changing way as everyone (who wasn’t a Wizard) did, they were much better behaved about it, and they very well knew and recognized the word ‘no’. Perhaps it was just that his strangeness just had a harder time wrapping itself around Dwarfs. Or it was their stubbornness that helped.  
  
Whatever it was.. it was nice.  
  
Even though they didn’t really see _him_ , they still _saw_ him. When Bofur ruffled his hair his hand didn’t linger, and while Kíli sometimes grabbed him up in a big breath-stealing hug, he did the same with Ori and Fíli every chance he got. And his hands never ended up anywhere inappropriate.  
  
Sometimes they all still looked at him like he was… something special, even Thorin did that.  
  
But it never got any worse, and for the first time in a very long time, Bilbo felt that he’d made friends.  
  
Even Thorin got a little nicer as the quest continued, and after saving the Dwarf from decapitation, and after the hug on the huge rock; the Carrock, Bilbo thought that things would get even better between them.  
  
Not so.  
  
Thorin stopped talking to him, almost entirely. Instead he kept looking at him with a dark frown on his face. It was _almost_ so that Bilbo would have preferred the stupid soppy look he’d seen on so many faces before. Even if that would also have hurt, because somewhere along the way he’d realised that he wanted Thorin to look at him like that because he _wanted_ to, not because something made him.  
  
That had always been the problem.

Occasionally there had been someone Bilbo could imagine himself fancying back, but that... that was wrong wasn’t it. He couldn’t fancy someone _back_ , because no one who approached him was really interested in _him_. They only wanted what they thought they saw.  
  
If he would have gone along with them then he wouldn’t have been any better than those who conveniently forgot the meaning of ‘no’ whenever it didn’t suit their purpose.  
  
-

On the fifth day they spent at guests to Beorn, (Bilbo had been wary of the huge Man at first, but he seemed almost as unaffected as Gandalf) Bilbo slipped away from the rest of the Company and went to lie down in the midst of the Shape-shifter’s gardens. He needed some time alone.  
  
Again, things didn’t go as he’d planned, because after only a short while lying on the grass looking up at the blue skies, a head popped into view. A very familiar head with eyes almost as blue as the sky; only a few shades too pale, and with dark hair run through with silver. And frowning eyebrows. Let’s not forget the frowning eyebrows. Eru knew that  Bilbo had certainly seen that expression on Thorin’s face enough to _never_ forget it.  
  
“What do you want?” Bilbo asked pushing himself up on his elbows, not caring that he sounded rude.  
  
“I could have sworn that your eyes were blue,” Thorin said slowly as he knelt down on the grass beside Bilbo.  
  
The Hobbit wanted to sigh. Had Thorin actually changed his mind about what he thought beautiful? It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened to someone, however he would not have expected someone as stubborn as Thorin to-  
  
"But they aren’t." Thorin huffed in apparent frustration. "I don't know _what_ colour they are. There is some blue in them to be sure, but I see flecks of green and brown, and they are definitely not the dark-" Thorin cut himself off. "Never mind, that is not important."  
   
Bilbo looked at the Dwarf in shock. That sounded, that sounded like how he’d seen his own eyes, when he’d last looked in a mirror.  
  
“And your hair-“ Thorin’s right hand twitched as if he’d been about to reach out. “It’s _lighter_. Much lighter than if it’d just been bleached by the sun.”  
  
“Thorin,” Bilbo breathed, almost not able to believe what he was hearing. “Do you see me?”  
  
“Of course I do,” Thorin said annoyed, then he relented. “At least, I thought I did. Why-“  
  
He broke off when Bilbo snagged his hand and brought it up to cup his cheek.  
  
“Look at me,” he demanded, pressing Thorin’s hands closer to his skin. “Look at me, look very hard, and tell me what you see.”  
  
For a long time Thorin knelt at his side, brows wrinkled in a frown that spoke more of concentration than of displeasure. Then his face cleared and his mouth fell open in surprise. It was the most undignified Bilbo had ever seen him look and it filled his chest with hope.  
  
“Oh,” Thorin said slowly, the same sound someone would make when waking from a dream; more breath than actual sound. “You have _freckles_.”  
  
Bilbo did have freckles. Not a lot of them, but he had them. Dotted beneath his eyes, in the exact spot that Thorin was now softly stroking with his thumb.  
  
“What else do you see,” Bilbo said, clutching at the Dwarfs hand. “Tell me.”  
  
“I see... I see that you’re beautiful,” Thorin said gently, moving to rubbing his thumb along a cheek that was neither pink as a rose, nor pale as moonlight, and for the first time in his life Bilbo believed those words.

**Author's Note:**

> Started out as a meta ramble in regards to all the stories where everyone wants Bilbo and/or he/she is described as the most lovely and gorgeous being in M-E. Turned it into an actual story after seeing a fic where Thranduil, Thorin and Tauriel were all over him in a big catfight. Because seriously, to prompt that, there had to be something fishy going on.


End file.
